


Tinder is for Lovers

by lemonstolemons



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Everyone really is bisexual, F/M, Grad School AU, Humor, Lesbian drama even though everyone is bisexual, Sango tries out tinder, Tinder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 05:30:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9307514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonstolemons/pseuds/lemonstolemons
Summary: Sango does not usually do this. And by this she means, going out on dates with strangers that she met from the internet or the Tinder/Bumble/Her/OkCupid app and trying to get over her short-lived romance with Kagome. And maybe she's really doing it for the rebound sex. But whatever! She's a healthy twenty-something living in San Francisco and she should enjoy herself!





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work, please enjoy!

Sango does not usually do this. 

She keeps thinking that she does not do this as she enters the bar, as she orders her beer, and as she waits, and as she twirls her hair and jiggles her foot against the bar stool. 

Her eyes pan the bar and she wonders if she should stay so front and center. Will people be able to tell that she’s nervously waiting for a tinder date? Are they already judging her? 

She tries to hide behind a curtain of her long hair and check out the other bar patrons. A couple of muscular frat boys from her university pounding back beers at the other end of the sticky bar, a group of obviously-under-eighteen-girls hurriedly sipping their cosmos before the bartender takes a second look at them, and handfuls of couples drinking their red wines and scotches while trying to not be too obvious about getting handsy under the table.

But nobody was looking at her. 

Sango felt her shoulders tense and she took another big gulp of her beer, why did people like beer again?, and swung her feet around the dark leather bar stool.   
Her outfit was good for fall probably. Short flat boots, a bright shift dress, black tights, and a light jacket. Was she too dressed up? Oh god, what if he was a Real Frat Boy. What if he, she turned her head slightly to the frat boys in the corner, was actually one of them??

So she usually did not do this. It had been, what, four-five months since her and Kagome had broken up? The relationship and the breakup were quite possibly the most lesbian thing to happen to her—meet at a dyke march, fall into bed, fall in love (within the span of one month), and promptly move in (after four months), and then break up when Kagome was no longer interested in being with another femme woman (the breakup lasted around four months). 

And now here she is. Waiting in a sticky college bar for some dude who could potentially be a serial killer or a rapist or both or maybe even one of her professors, she had read that in books but knew it could also happen in life, or maybe it was just a sick prank by the frat dudes in the corner, oh GOD she’d never live this down, she’d have to transfer schools and create a new identity and she should’ve had Kagura come with her and she probably should have read this guy’s profile more thoroughly and—

“Sango?”

She whipped around in her seat. 

“Yes, hi, hello, that’s me,” she was suddenly at a loss for what to do. Handshake? Hug? She settled on swigging her beer again. It was halfway empty. “Miroku?”

“Yeah, that’s me, hi,” he smiled at her and sat on the creaky bar stool next to her. “Sorry if I was late, I didn’t mean for you to start without me.” He smiled at Sango again and signaled to the bartender for a beer as well.

Sango sipped at her beer—which she needed to slow down on—and checked Miroku out. He was wearing a lined denim jacket over a soft-looking button down and pleasantly worn-in brown pants. She was expecting him to show up in a light pink polo and bright red chubbies, so this was a relief. His profile had said “Sigma X, Buddhist, Family is life. Beer is life.” With a smattering of winky and beer emojis but in between his shirtless pics, he’d posted a couple of cute ones with his tiny and wrinkly Japanese parents and one with his dog. So maybe he was hot and dumb but at least he’d probably be a better rebound than the prior tinder dates—

“So…” he sipped at his beer and cleared his throat. “How’s your day been going?”

“Oh, it’s been pretty nice, you know…just spent a lot of time in the library as per usual.” Sango twiddled with her hair as her eyes darted around the bar.

“Cool cool, you’re a librarian, right…? Or was it a secretary…?”

“Nope haha, I’m actually a grad student during research for my dissertation,” Sango laughed lightly. “And you, you’re a priest right? At UC Berkeley as well?”

“Yeah, well I’m in the process of getting ordained right now, going to be in college for a million years…” Miroku drank his beer slowly and watched her. Sango finished her beer and signaled for another.

“Ah, interesting.”

“What?”

“You know, I don’t really associate monks with being frat boys.”

“Isn’t that kind of a judgey assumption?”

“Hmm…maybe.”

Miroku laughed and his shoulders visibly relaxed. “Well it’s not as if I’m out there doing keg stands in between services. Aren’t you a rugby coach and an art historian? That seems like an unusual combination.”

Sango laughed. “That’s true, I guess I’ve always been in sports ever since I was little. Basketball, tennis, badminton, softball, you know almost everything.”   
“Ah, so all the dykey sports?”

Sango choked on her beer and turned sharply towards him. “What did you say?”

“You know…basketball, softball, rugby…are all very queer women sports…” Miroku’s voice cracked a little. “It’s just that, on your profile you said that you were bi, thought it would be an okay joke you know, ha ha—”

Sango cut him off. Typical frat boy. “Listen, I’ve been out for years but not so that some straight frat boy can make jokes about my identity. Ugh, I can’t believe I thought I was ready to date men again, oh my god.” She downed the rest of her beer and stood up. “I am so over tinder boys thinking they can say the word ‘dyke’, like, it’s a slur??” Sango started to put her jacket on and her bag over her shoulder. “It’s like! The last three dates I went on with straight men and that was the second thing out of their mouth. ‘Oh, you’re bi? Haha, got any sexy stories to tell? Wanna have a threesome with me and my girlfriend?’ Ugh, you’re all the same.”

“Sango, wait,” Miroku put a hand over hers and looked up at her. Sango flushed. “I only made those jokes because you know,” he shrugged, “I’m bi too. I thought it’d be okay and I really didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or angry.” Miroku’s eyes were very earnest and Sango’s face was so red and so embarrassed.

“Oh.” She sat back down on the stool.

“Yeah, people don’t usually expect it from me.”

“Oh my god.”

Sango covered her face with her hands. 

“Miroku, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.” She really had not been paying attention to his profile.

“No, it’s okay, I should’ve made it clear that I was queer too before I made the joke.”

She punched him softly in the arm. “Yeah, you should’ve you butt.”

“Wanna start over?” Miroku stuck out his hand. “Hi, I’m Miroku and I’m bi, in the process of becoming an ordained priest, and very interested in getting out of this bar.”

Sango shook his hand. “Hi I’m Sango, I’m bi, getting my masters in Japanese art history, and I coach a women’s rugby team. I am also interested in getting out of this gross bar.”

Sango and Miroku stood up. 

“I think I know somewhere we can go,” Sango smiled as she led Miroku out the door. 

***

They stood on the BART platform, staring at their boots and waiting for the train to come. 

Miroku broke the silence first. “Okay, so Japanese art history. Tell me about that.” 

Sango put her hands in her pockets and looked up towards the concrete ceiling of the station. “Well, hmmm…I’ve always loved art. I was an Art History and Japanese double-major in undergrad and very briefly ran the Anime Club…”

Miroku laughed out loud. “The Anime Club! Oh my god, you were one of those, you know” He put his palms on the sides of his cheeks and widened his eyes, blinking his lashes at her. “Like, uwu, xD, that sort of stuff?”

Sango laughed loudly. “Ugh, yes, unfortunately. It was brief though! And everyone has an anime phase. It was also nice to imagine comics where all of the characters were Japanese and I could see myself in those storylines.”

Miroku smiled. “Yeah, I feel you. I also went through a very um…long weeaboo phase but I think that’s because I lived in the whitest city in the United States. Do you know Portland, Oregon?”

Sango shook her head. “I’m a SoCal girl. Los Angeles born and raised.”

Miroku nodded. “Yeah, my high school was pretty white and my neighborhood was pretty white. Come to think of it, the only place where I really met other Asian kids was in Anime Club. A bunch of nerds freaking out over the latest installment of whatever new manga was out.” Miroku laughed. “It was nice to go over to their houses and see their little shrines and know the expected social rules. I didn’t have to sit with my white friends as they yelled at their parents, oh god.” Miroku cringed.

Sango laughed out loud. “Oh god! That was the worst. My first boyfriend was white and going to his house was terrible. All of the yelling and the dirty shoes! That and his obvious yellow fever, yuck.” The train pulled into the station and Miroku and Sango got on.

They settled in the plastic seats near the exit. There was a silence as other people got on and the train screeched through the tunnels.

“So…do your parents know?” 

Sango sighed. “Well, I guess they sort of know. They have a tough time accepting their potentially gay, hopefully straight, loudmouthed daughter sometimes.” She turned towards Miroku and tilted her head. 

“You?”

Miroku wrinkled his brow and stared out of the grimy Bart windows. “Well, they’re like…weird hippies I guess. They’re vegan and we go on hikes together but they’re not really interested in,” Miroku struggles for words as the train screeches through the tunnel, “being Japanese I guess?” 

Sango nods, her grandparents have a contentious relationship with being Japanese after being interned during World War II. A lot of tight lipped responses to Sango’s school history reports about World War II and refusals to teach her Japanese. Sango had had to pry it out of her mom during Christmas one year when her family was red in the face from too much wine, beer, and sake. Her and her mother had stood whispering in the kitchen, her mother in a floral apron with one hand holding a glass of white wine, the other struggling to refill other glasses and mugs with wine and beer while Sango, cherry red, piled decorated Christmas cookies on two big platters. Her mother slipped between Japanese and English then, telling her about finding smiling black and white photos of Sango’s grandparents boarding a train, eating dinner, and acting like everything was normal.

Of course it wasn’t, but Japanese people weren’t exactly keen about talking about their feelings, let alone incredibly traumatic events. After that her mother had hustled her out of the kitchen with a look that told her not to be loud and ruin the family Christmas gathering.

Sango looked up and listened as the conductor announced 16th and Mission in possibly the most inaudible way and she smiled at Miroku. “This is our stop! Next up, El Rio.” They clambered off the train with the rest of San Francisco, eager to dance and drink together.


End file.
